The current disclosure relates generally to refrigerators, and more specifically to apparatus for pelletizing ice within a refrigerator.
Generally, a refrigerator includes an ice maker and an ice dispensing device. Typically, the ice dispensing device can dispense whole ice cubes or crushed cubes of ice to a user's receptacle.
It is now common in the art of refrigerators to provide an ice dispenser which has the ability to dispense both whole cubes of ice and crushed cubes of ice. Crushed ice is typically created by mechanically breaking up whole cubes of ice, essentially forming smaller cubes of ice with the same density and hardness.
It is also now common for refrigerators to be configured to form ice on a surface and scrape flakes or portions of that ice off to dispense to a user. Even though these scraped flakes or portions of ice can be formed into a larger mass, since the scraped flakes or portions of ice are fractured and not compacted, they are soft and easily broken. Still other refrigerators are configured to quickly freeze small droplets of water as they fall a short distance, so that small droplets of ice may be dispensed to a user. These refrigerators typically do not have the ability to dispense whole ice cubes.
These known designs have disadvantages including the undesirability of producing smaller cubes of ice with the same density and hardness as the whole ice cubes. Other disadvantages of these known designs include the production of soft, easily broken masses which fall apart upon dispensing or use.
Thus, an ability to first produce a shaved, particulate ice product and subsequently form that shaved, particulate ice product into a pellet is desired. These pellets are not as hard as whole ice cubes and are easier for a user to chew. Also, an ability for a refrigerator to dispense either whole ice cubes or pellet ice cubes is desired.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus for producing ice pellets within a refrigerator that is efficient and reliable.